Jack White Says Hit ‘Seven Nation Army’ Almost Overlooked as a Single

White Stripes frontman Jack White has said the anthemic ‘Seven Nation Army’ — one of the key rock songs of the last decade — was nearly overlooked as a single.

White told Xfm presenter Steve Harris how the song’s qualities were almost passed over in favour of another song from parent album ‘Elephant.’

“It’s a compelling idea, thinking about singles,” said White. “Nobody knows. Record labels don’t know, artists don’t really know most of the time. I can think back to when ‘Elephant’ came out I wanted to put ‘Seven Nation Army’ out as a single. The label in England and the label in America both didn’t want to.

“They wanted to put ‘There’s No Room for You Here’ … can you imagine not putting ‘Seven Nation Army’ out as a single?”